SKELETON: Another personal best and top 20 performance over the weekend has Aussie Skeleton athlete Jackie Narracott a step closer to an Olympic debut at PyeongChang 2018.
The 27-year-old was sitting in 20th place after her first run at the Whistler edition of the BMW World Cup circuit and was able to maintain her position, adding in a personal best.
German competitor Jacqueline Loelling took the top spot on the women’s podium with the time of 1:48.38, followed by Canada’s Jane Channell and Germany’s Tina Hermann.
With only a 2.23 second gap between the Aussie and Loelling, Narracott finished with the time of 1:50.61.
“It was a big improvement on last year and another week of things moving in the right direction,” the Queenslander said, who currently stands 19th on the women’s rankings.
“Also, my second run was the better of the two today, which is an improvement on the last two weeks.”
Narracott was stoked to improve on her previous experience on the 2010 Olympic Track.
“Whistler and I haven’t really gotten along the best but today was better. Plus, the gap in my consistency levels is definitely decreasing.”
Brothers Dean and Nicholas Timmings represented the green and gold in the Men’s competition, with Nick finishing in 20th with the time of 1:48.03 only 3.69 seconds off the pace.
Dean finished not far behind and in 27th with a time of 54.77.
Nick was particularly pleased with his result, taking to social media to commemorate the occasion.
“I had my best ever World Cup result in Whistler and my first top speed of 141.31km/h, and a PB downtime on the Whistler track,” Nick said on Instagram
Korea’s Sungbin Yun took out the men’s competition with the time of 1:44.34 closely followed by Russian slider Nikita Tregubov and the bronze medallist, Tomass Dukurs from Latvia.
The Aussie sliders now face a competition-free weekend before they return to the track in Germany for the Winterberg World Cup on December 8.
“Sunday marks the end of our first ‘round the northern hemisphere’ trip for the season,” Narracott said.
“It’s been a huge 9 weeks on the road from both an improvement and travel perspective so the week off is greatly appreciated!”
olympics.com.au
